


All I Want for Christmas

by i_gaze_at_scully



Series: Movie night [10]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Bittersweet, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-09-06 20:57:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16840291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_gaze_at_scully/pseuds/i_gaze_at_scully
Summary: Post-ep for How The Ghosts Stole Christmas.





	All I Want for Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Post-ep for How The Ghosts Stole Christmas.

A year ago, Scully lost the daughter she never knew she had and the life she briefly imagined she could have. The world exploded in color that September, the supernova before the cosmic collapse into a black hole: no color, no sound, no sun. The icy air stung her lungs like she was breathing underwater the entire month of December. Winter was back and the body remembers the pain interred in barren earth. Her body remembered.

It didn’t help being sidelined. Long days in the bullpen with as much intellectual stimulation as watching paint dry. Long days knocking on doors, using honey to catch flies while the vinegar bubbled in her throat. 

But she had Mulder. She had him on those long drives through endless snow-drowned fields to spit out trivia facts about east bumblefuck Ohio. To spar with about the vanishing hitchhiker in rural West Virginia.

“Don’t be so sure, Scully,” he argues four hours in to a seven hour drive. “You’re more likely than me to pick one up.”

“And how’s that?” She rests her eyes, avoiding highway hypnosis.

“It’s the vanishing hitchhiker’s m.o., part of the lure of the legend. The driver isn’t seeking the paranormal; the paranormal finds the driver.” 

“Guess I better start looking for something spooky then,” she says, opening her eyes to give him a tired smile.

—-

Scully is not a last minute shopper. She has all her gifts purchased, wrapped, and packed by 9 AM, December 24. She’ll drive to Annapolis on Christmas morning, early to beat the traffic, and spend the day accepting her mother’s well-intentioned pity. _Dana, could you help me in the kitchen? Dana, would you ask Tara to grab your brother? I want to take a picture of you two._ Maggie knows. 

Mulder, Mulder knows too. Mulder finds a ghost story with a bad bark and teeth to match to get her out of her apartment on Christmas Eve. He knows her pride would allow for nothing less. 

_You must have an awful small life, spending your Christmas Eve with him,_ they’d told her in that nightmare of a house. _Intimacy through codependency._ She bores holes in her ceiling while her mind spins. _Lover’s pact._ She gets back in her car. 

He’s awake, still dressed too, sans the blood and the bullet holes. He gives her a good hard look when she asks with no preamble for ignorant bliss, for the denial he rallies against every day. 

“Mulder, none of that really happened out there tonight–that was all in our heads, right?” 

He tells her what she needs to hear. “It… must have been.” 

She relaxes into their banter and allows his lie to fuel her truth. 

“Maybe I did want to be out there with you,” she admits. 

—-

“Glow Goo?” She laughs, turning her Christmas gift incredulously. Speckling the tube are little green cartoon ghosts with big smiles. _Watch It Ooze! Glows in the Dark!_ written in bright cyan. 

“‘For the mad scientist in your life.’ Couldn’t turn that up.” She elbows him playfully and unscrews the cap. He leans over to peer into the container, but she covers it with her hands. 

“I have to see if it really glows in the dark first,” she whispers theatrically, opening her fingers a sliver to look inside. She smiles and leans back, nodding for him to try. She gives the goop a poke for good measure once he’s had his turn. She thanks him, and she means it.

“Open yours,” she insists, replacing the cap and setting the gift aside. 

She knew her gift was risky, because she hadn’t had a chance to confirm her hunch before she made the purchase.

“Now before you go politely accepting a gift you _think_ you already have…” she starts, standing to find his VHS collection as he tears the wrapping paper.

“Think?” She ignores him as she searches, cheering silently when she finds it.

“Here,” she says, handing him his own copy of _Star Trek: The Motion Picture._ “Notice anything, G-man?”

He takes a moment to turn them each over, his now two _Star Trek_ VHS tapes. When the lightbulb goes off, she meets his shock with a satisfied grin. 

“How did you find this?” 

It hadn’t been easy, locating the original 1981 theatrical release. Only two years later, the extended cut came out and put most of them out of circulation. 

“That’s why they put the _I_ in FBI,” she smirks, sitting back down next to him. 

“Did you know that the director hated the extended cut?” He puts both tapes down, angles his whole body to face her. She hasn’t seen him so animated in a while. She feels a warmth spread through her lungs, her skin. “Most of the footage was unfinished, thrown together for the ABC premier. I haven’t seen this version since I saw it in theaters. Jeez, and I got you a tube full of goo.” 

Scully’s body begins to settle in to the worn leather couch, shaking off the whispers of pain of seedlings of doubt. She is grounded by Mulder’s knees pressed against her thigh, his arm across her back. 

“Thanks, Scully.” He places a hand on her knee. “Means a lot.”

“Merry Christmas, Mulder.”

“…Well now you know we have to watch it, right?”

The vacuum black of night gives way to an onyx sky as dawn slowly stirs. Scully will have to leave for Annapolis soon. She settles into the crook of his arm and puts her legs up on the coffee table.

“Beam me up, Scotty.”


End file.
